"An erotic Buddhist."
"Esoteric," suggested Belle.
"It's all the same. He said we were the three Thibetan sisters and he worshipped us all. But we know who it is, don't we?"
"How you giggle, girls!" complained Colonel Stuart fretfully. "Belle never giggles. Dear child, I will teach you écarté this evening. It will amuse you."
It amused him, which was more to the purpose; in addition it prevented him from falling asleep after dinner, which he was particularly anxious not to do that evening. So they played until, just as the clock was striking ten, a step was heard outside, and Colonel Stuart rose with a relieved remark that it must be John Raby at last. The opening door, however, only admitted truant Dick with rather a flushed face. "From Raby," he said handing a note to his uncle. "I met the man outside."
The scowl, which the sight of the culprit had raised on Colonel Stuart's face, deepened as he read a palpable excuse for not coming over to play écarté. It seemed inconceivable that Dick's remonstrance could have wrought this disappointment; yet even the suggestion was unpleasant. He turned on his nephew only too anxious to find cause of quarrel. It was not hard to find, for Dick was manifestly excited. "At your old tricks again, sir?" said his uncle sternly. "You've been drinking in the bazaar."
Now Dick, ever since the day on which Belle had come to him in distress over Charlie's abandonment to "pegs," had forsworn liquor, as he had forsworn many another bad habit. Even when driven to despair, he had not flown to the old anodyne. But his very virtue had been his undoing, and a single stiff tumbler of whisky and water, forced on him by a friend who was startled by his looks as he returned fagged from a wander into the wilderness, had gone to his unaccustomed head in a most unlooked-for degree. The injustice of the accusation maddened him, and he retorted fiercely: "I haven't had so much to drink as you have, sir."
"Don't speak to your uncle like that, Dick," cried Mrs. Stuart alarmed. "You had better go to bed, dear; it is the best place for you."
"Leave the room, you dissipated young meddler," thundered the Colonel breaking in on his wife's attempt to avert a collision. It was the first time Belle had witnessed her father's passion, and the sight made her cling to him as if her touch might soothe his anger.
Dick, seeing her thus, felt himself an outcast indeed. "I've not been drinking," he burst out, beside himself with jealousy and rage. "The man who says I have is a liar."